


The Vigil

by Venivincere



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Character death NOT Merlin or Arthur, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-30
Updated: 2012-03-30
Packaged: 2017-11-02 17:47:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/371678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venivincere/pseuds/Venivincere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin/Arthur, Angst. "All good things must come to an end."  Missing Scene from 4x03.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Vigil

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2011/2012 Merlin Games. (Prompt ID: 73: "All good things must come to an end.") What happened just before Arthur was called to sit vigil at his father's side in the Great Hall. Many thanks to my beta Planejane, without whom this story would have fallen flatter than a pancake with no leavening and been as pointless as a sphere. And many thanks to Team Canon, for pointing out other mistakes and inconsistencies, and for being such an amazing and supportive group of friends. FORBÆRN!

“One of my earliest memories of my father,” says Arthur, fingering the stem of his goblet -- and Merlin’s ears perk up and he practically quivers -- “is from when I was about four years old. I remember we were in his rooms. We spent many evenings there when I was a little boy. He used to have this bearskin rug in front of the fireplace, a rank old thing, and he used to stretch out on it and watch me play at being a knight with a toy sword and shield. Give me pointers, you know? 'Keep the tip up!' and 'Your shield's for blocking, Arthur. Use it!" Arthur's chest ripples with a huffed laugh. 

"So there we were, him with a flagon of something, probably mead, and me whacking the hell out of the andirons, and I just stop. I turn around and march right up to him, and crouch down in front of his face, and ask, 'Father, is sorcery bad?'" 

Merlin laughs. "You had guts."

"I was tiny. I didn't know any better. And don't laugh!"

Merlin stops, but he can't stop grinning, so he hides it behind his own goblet so Arthur won't remark upon it and lose the thread of his story.

Arthur shoots Merlin a look. "He wasn't like how you knew him. Not when I was small. He -- was actually surprisingly patient with me..."

Merlin feels a fleeting clench in his chest, and the grin sinks off his face in an instant.

"Anyway, he looked at me. Just looked, for the longest time, and then he said, 'Yes. Very bad. And the sorcerers who wield it are all very bad, too. Never forget that, Arthur.' And I remember being very shocked by that because I was always asking Nurse for my favorite story before bed and it was a story about this sorcerer who was going to come to Camelot one day so he and the King could unite all Albion under Camelot's rule." Arthur shoots an easy smile at Merlin. "Can you actually imagine if that were true?"

Merlin has a dull flash of panic that he washes away with another gulp from his goblet. "No?" he says, his voice steadier than it has any right to be.

"So I told father all about it and I asked him if that sorcerer were also bad. And he didn't answer me right away, so I asked him, 'Are you angry?' and he said, 'No. But Arthur!' and my father sat up all the way, like this," Arthur sits up straight in his chair, hands on hips, with a terrifyingly Uther-like forbidding expression on his face, "and he says, 'Are you going to believe a story your nurse told you over the word of your father and King?' Well, that just stung my pride, and, if truth be told, scared me a little--"

Merlin's giddy enough with drink that he bursts into giggles. "I can just see you, all cross. Or possibly wide-eyed. Definitely short."

"I'll give _you_ short." Arthur reaches out with the toe of his boot and kicks the leg of Merlin's chair. "And stop it! You really can't laugh at me like that." But Arthur's laughing now, too, and that sweeps Merlin into full gale.

"So anyway," says Arthur, after their laughter dies down and he's taken another sip from his goblet, "I stood up straight and puffed out my chest, all indignant and feeling every one of my four princely years, and said, 'No, father!'"

Arthur huffs another laugh. "Honestly, I have no idea how he kept from cracking a smile, let alone laughing outright at me."

Merlin imagines a young Arthur, tow-headed and earnest and energetic and very full of little-boy dignity. He feels warmth like an ache under his ribs.

"But he didn't. He said, 'Well then, show me how well you can fight the sorcerers, Arthur,' and I took my little wooden sword and had at the andirons again. And I remember asking Nurse that night for a different story. In fact, I don't think I ever asked for the story of the sorcerer and the King again."

Something in Merlin dies a little.

"It wasn't too long after that, less than a year I think, when my father took his knights into battle against... well, some sorcerer. Nimueh, probably. She was always causing problems for father. I don't even remember what she'd done that time, if I even ever knew. Anyway, when my father came back, I asked him, 'Father, did you kill the sorcerer?' and he smiled at me and ruffled my hair and looked very proud of me, indeed. Oh, stop, Merlin. I was _barely five_."

Merlin can't remember ever being more thankful for a sob being mistaken for a laugh. He holds his breath. He takes a deep pull from his goblet, refills it from the flagon and takes another pull, then finally lets out his breath. As an afterthought, he fills Arthur's goblet, too.

Arthur frowns and laughs, but the frown wins. He swallows. Picks up his goblet and takes a long pull. Blinks hard a few times and and rubs his eyes with the back of his sleeve.

Merlin looks away toward the fire and keeps his eyes there until Arthur gives a mighty sniff and starts talking again.

"It wasn't until years later, when I killed the unicorn, in fact, and had to make it right, that I wondered if he was proud of me, or proud that I'd asked first about the sorcerer."

Merlin sits back in his chair, and maybe it's a testament to how well he knows Arthur these days, but it doesn't take much to slip into Arthur's uncertainties about his father's motives, his father's affections, and feel them as if they were his own. He tips his head back and tries to stretch away the tight ache in his throat. Two hot tears blaze a trail across his temples, puddle in his ears and cool there. He sniffs. Arthur clears his throat and Merlin tips his head back down and looks at him. Arthur's eyes are bright, and bore straight into Merlin's.

"He used to push me, you know -- when I got older, and too old to play in front of the fire. I remember I'd just got my first real sword. I thought I was ready to train with the knights right then and there." A small, painful smile works its way over Arthur's face.

Merlin's echoes it.

"My father set me straight before I'd gone two steps. 'Arthur,' he said," and Arthur's voice turns into Uther's gruff bark, "'you will train under Sir Kay. In the morning you will pick up your sword in the armoury when Sir Kay tells you to, and in the evening, he will supervise you while you clean your sword and put it away. You are to train only with him, until such time as he declares you fit to train with the rest of the knights. I will allow you to have this sword only under these conditions. Give me your word that you will follow them.'

"Well. If anything, I was a stubborn young buck. I couldn't take my eyes off that sword." Arthur smiles, and it looks like it hurts.

A vision of a young, mulish Arthur pops complete and vivid into Merlin's head. He smiles, and his eyes feel scrunched like they do when he's crying.

"I listened to his conditions and came all over contrary and wasn't about to agree to anything of the sort until he said I couldn't have the sword unless I did, so I said, 'I give you my word, father.' Within five minutes of leaving the hall I was deep in plans to ensure that my sword, _my_ sword, thank you, stayed in _my_ hands, in _my_ room, available to me at _my_ convenience."

"Oh, Arthur." Merlin tries to huff a laugh, but it doesn't come. He manages a noisy breath, hot and congested, then sniffs hard and swallows. Arthur's face wavers and blurrs in front of him.

Arthur looks down at his hands, takes a breath as though he's going to say something, but clears his throat, instead. When he does look up and speak, his voice is a little softer, a little higher than before. "After all, my father kept _his_ sword in his room, in a stand by his bed. That stand, actually," says Arthur, pointing. "He gave that to me after I led my first battle."

Merlin resolutely pretends to ignore the shining streaks on Arthur's cheeks, even as he's aware of the hot trails running down his own.

"Anyway," says Arthur, sniffing mightily and dashing the backs of his hands under his eyes, "my head was full of plans to steal that sword back and march down to practice with Kay in the morning with my sword already at my side. There was a feast that night, and -- well, you remember how my father was. He did love his drink."

They look at each other and grin, and Arthur's smile lifts Merlin.

"I leaned over while he was talking to Sir Kay on his other side, and purloined father's keys. He never even noticed. And there was my plan, realised, and I remember thinking it was pathetically easy and actually being a little disappointed that my father could be duped so easily.

"So at the end of the night, after he'd staggered out of the hall on his way to his rooms, I waited for him to clear the corridor and took off for the armoury. I got down there and tried every key on that ring, but none of them worked. I thought maybe I'd taken the wrong set, but he only had one set he kept with him. There was another set... he didn't carry those around. They were the keys to my mother's rooms. Those, he kept in a drawer by his bed." Arthur stops and gulps his wine. His hand shakes as he sets the goblet down.

An impossible ache blooms in Merlin's chest.

"I was standing there in front of the armoury doors trying to figure out how to get the keys back into my father's rooms before he noticed they were gone, when the armoury doors opened. And there was my father, holding out his hand for his keys."

Merlin's surprise startles him. He smiles. "Seriously?"

Arthur smiles back, a bit rueful and faint. "Yes, seriously. I got this horrible, sick feeling in my stomach, and when I handed him the keys it took forever to get them into his hand. And then he just stared at me, and I couldn't take my eyes off his, and I was feeling sicker and sicker and about ready to vomit when he finally said, 'Arthur, follow me.'

"He took me up to the battlements. It was dark as pitch, but he didn't even stop for a torch, just made his way up there by memory and pure stubborn determination. It was brighter when we got to the top. The moon was almost at the full, and made a reflective glow over the roofs of the lower town. He leaned on the crenel wall and motioned me next to him. We looked out and he was quiet for a bit.

"Eventually, he said, 'Arthur, I built all this.' I didn't know where he was going with that, but I got this sinking feeling in my belly because I just _knew_ this was going to be an epic lecture and I'd be lucky if I didn't get the lash for disobedience, let alone thievery. Gods knew I certainly deserved it."

Merlin winces. Arthur grimaces back at him. 

"Anyway, my father said, 'How do you think I built all this?' and I was feeling so sick and fearful by then, my stomach was trembling." Arthur sits back up and points a finger at Merlin. "And if I hear you telling _anyone_ about this, Merlin, you're a dead man."

Merlin rolls his eyes, but really it's just the distraction he needs. He can't help feeling intensely thankful for Arthur even as he says, "Arthur -- who would I even tell?"

Arthur arches an eyebrow at him, holds it there and holds it. It's so much like Gaius that Merlin realises that's exactly who Arthur means he might tell, and Merlin laughs. And then, they're both laughing. Merlin's stomach swoops with this great, gushing sweep of affection for Arthur, because it's in the little moments like this one, where Arthur acknowledges that he pays attention to who Merlin's close with, who he loves, that Merlin knows Arthur loves him, too. That's a happiness he can't contain, and apparently, neither can Arthur. They laugh some more, laugh until their sides ache and tears are rolling down their cheeks, and they can no longer hold themselves up. When it dies down, they are both helpless against the backs of their chairs, staring at one another and smiling, tears still running down their faces. And for as well as Merlin knows Arthur, Arthur really must know Merlin, too, because just as Merlin's tears begin to turn from laughter into blinding grief for Arthur's loss, Arthur's face flashes with a moment of panic and he's sitting up and wiping his eyes, and continuing his story. 

"Anyway," he says, as one last shred of a laugh escapes, "I was feeling sick about the whole thing, but also angry, because I earnestly believed a prince should have his sword with him all the time. And I didn't have an answer for my father. So I just stood there next to him, looking out over the city and feeling miserable, and he said, 'I'll tell you. I built all this on bricks of trust, Arthur. When Camelot became mine, I promised it would grow to greatness under my rule. I promised protection for my people. I promised prosperity if they followed the rule of my law. I never wavered in my promise, Arthur. I worked tirelessly to ensure that my people were protected from sorcery. I punished lawbreakers and I rewarded those who were loyal to me, and I did so consistently and according to my word. And because they saw that I was as good as my word, I garnered the trust of my people."

"'You gave me your word you would follow Sir Kay for your training, and not half a day later, I find you dishonest in your intent.'"

Arthur stops for a moment, and looks at Merlin with an ease borne of trust and friendship. Merlin feels a familiar wash of shame in his heart.

"By this time, I was trembling all over, and felt certain I would vomit at any moment. My father didn't say anything for a long while. Then he turned to me and said, 'If I cannot trust you to follow through on your word in the face of the temptations of a sword, how can I ever trust you to follow through on your word in the face of the temptations of an entire kingdom?'

"He left me there on the battlements. No lashes ordered, no shouting, nothing. I was paralysed with shame. I'd suffered punishments before. Everything from the back of his hand when I was little, to the dungeons, and once, he even ordered three lashes when I had carelessly endangered the life of one of his knights. But as horrible as those punishments were, at least they were a way to atone. This --" Arthur cuts off, and he looks back and forth at each of Merlin's eyes, intense, as though he were in pain, "it was worse than any punishment I'd ever had. There was no way to atone, no punishment to suffer, and it was the most painful lesson of my life. The only way to make good on this was to change my ways."

Arthur reaches for his goblet and drinks deeply. "That night, as I stood on the battlements looking out over Camelot, I made a solemn vow that I would take the utmost care with my word thereafter. To this day, I have only broken that vow once." 

Merlin watches Arthur clench and unclench his fist, blink hard, and swallow. He looks down at the flagstones between them. Merlin gets a sick, guilty feeling in the pit of his stomach, cold and anticipatory.

"I can remember only one thing he did that hurt worse than that. He never talked about my mother, but there was one time... it was on my naming day. He declared a feast. Do you remember?" Arthur finally looks up at Merlin. "Or maybe you don't. I let you go early that night, didn't I?" Arthur's eyes drop back down to the flagstones. "We were well into our cups and there was just us left at the table and some knights and their squires telling stories around the hearth. And I turned to him, and he had tears rolling down his cheeks. I looked around but no one was watching. I leaned over toward him and said, 'Father--' and he looked at me and said, 'She would have been so proud of you'."

Arthur gulps, then gulps again and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. Merlin's heart tears and he swears he can feel the blood washing out, the tide exposing the guilt and shame he's packed away inside. He can barely keep his eyes on Arthur. He's heaped up around Arthur sin after sin, lie after lie in the name of destiny, and he's foundering in them, drowning, and fearful they may never be safely dismantled. He wonders if his guilt and shame is showing in his face -- guilt for poisoning Morgana and turning her against Uther and Arthur, guilt for killing Uther (no matter what Gaius says, Merlin should have _realised_ ), shame for, after everything they'd lived through, fought through, and given up for one another, _still lying_ to Arthur about his magic. But he can't wonder about it now, because Arthur needs him to be present in the moment and listening, and even if he is the worst malignancy Arthur will ever know, he can't stop being his friend. He could never stop that.

"She was always a dream, before. Someone spoken about by people in other rooms, or to me, with pity, and always with quiet voices. Gods, that used to make me so angry!" Arthur looks up at Merlin, pierces him with his gaze. "All those quiet voices! But here was my father, saying she would have been proud of me and _crying_ , for pity's sake, and if anyone would know how my mother would have felt it would have been my father, right? Suddenly she was this _person_ to me in a way she never had been before, and when he said that, I felt closer to her than I'd ever felt in my life. And," Arthur's voice cracks. The corners of his mouth flicker down and he takes several gulping breaths.

Merlin feels poised on the edge of a precipice.

"And. He never cried. Not even when Gorlois died, and I'd never known him to be closer to anyone, aside from my mother and myself. But that night." Arthur sniffs hard, and when he blinks, two fresh tears escape and trail down his cheeks. He opens his mouth as if to speak, looks at the ceiling, the table, the fire, and finally says, "And it made him a little more reachable. A little more human in a way I hadn't remembered him being since I was a little boy playing at knights on his hearth."

Merlin breathes out, silent and hot, out, out, out until there is nothing left, and the heat rises in his cheeks and spills out of his eyes. The tears stream, and he can't take a breath.

Arthur finally looks at Merlin. "Oh, don't you start, too. Here." Arthur leans forward, and shocks a breath into Merlin when he grabs the tip of Merlin's neckerchief off his chest and gently presses it to each of Merlin's cheeks. Merlin's face burns with his shame, and the tears pour silently out, and he's never felt less worthy of Arthur's regard in his life.

"And then when we lost Morgana for good" -- Arthur's words stab Merlin in the heart -- "I can't tell you how many times I sat with my father while he cried. Most of the time he wasn't lucid, but I remember one morning before council, he turned to me, tears streaming down his face, and he said--"

Arthur puts his head in his hands, fists his hair, tugs. He stays like that for awhile, a cataract of rough breathing sounding from between his arms. When he releases his hair and brings his head back up, his eyes are red and his nose is dripping. He sniffs mightily and swipes at his nose with the back of his hand.

"--He said, 'look what sorcery has done to us, Arthur. To me. It's taken away all but one of those most dear to me.' And he grabbed my hand and said, 'Promise me. Promise me you will never resort to using sorcery, Arthur. Not for anything. It is a poison in the land. It destroys everything and everyone it touches.'"

Arthur takes a deep breath, lets it out, takes another, and squares his shoulders. Merlin watches Arthur and a sickening dread creeps in. 

"So I promised him." Arthur squeezes his lips together, but they don't stop trembling. "I promised him, and I broke my word, and--"

A rough sob escapes and the dam bursts and the tears pour down Arthur's cheeks. Arthur sits bent forward in his chair, his face twisted and wet and red, and sobs until Merlin's heart feels wrung like a cloth. Arthur sobs as Merlin slips out of his chair and onto his knees in front of Arthur. He sobs as Merlin takes Arthur's hand in his own and bows his head, bares his neck and wishes Arthur's knee were the chopping block. Arthur sobs, and Merlin wails, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Arthur! I'm so sorry!" into his upturned hand, and Merlin lets the brush of his lips mop away the tears he deposits there. Arthur quiets, but Merlin barely notes it in his anguish, and he murmurs, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," until his own tears run dry, until his head is resting on Arthur's knee, and his lips are resting soft on the hand folded up in his own.

They stay that way, unmoving, Merlin clench-hearted and staring, seeing nothing.

Eventually, Arthur's other hand comes to rest on the back of Merlin's head. Arthur's fingers card methodically through Merlin's hair. Merlin's never felt less deserving of comfort, but nothing has changed; Arthur can't be aware of Merlin's guilt, so he accepts it until Arthur stirs, and only then does Merlin rise. He looks around, and blinks. Then he gathers their goblets and the ewer, steps out into the corridor with them, and hands them to a passing maid. He takes a deep breath and stares at the door, and thinks that perhaps something _should_ be said, though he doesn't know quite where to start. He yearns to tell the truth. About everything. It's a bone-deep, weary urge borne of the unbearable burden of years of dishonesty. But equally unbearable is the thought of breaking Arthur's heart. He is still perfectly torn when he comes back in.

"I am so sorry," says Merlin, completely lost. "I... I shou--" _\--should never have pushed you to use magic should never have caused you to break your word to your father should never have come to Camelot and ruined your life--_ "I wish that there was something I could have done."

"Merlin, no one but me is to blame for this." Arthur's pulled his chair back to the table. He is sitting up straight and staring blankly ahead. Merlin recognises this; it's something Arthur does all the time. He takes the blame, so he can take responsibility for making it right. A sick fear washes over Merlin, fear of what Arthur might do to make this right.

"You are not to blame. This isn't your fault," he says, but he's still foundering in a sea of guilt and shame, and he can't find his way to the right words.

"I'm entirely to blame. My father spent twenty years fighting magic. To think I knew better... I was _so arrogant_ ," says Arthur, so full of bitterness at himself that Merlin's heart breaks all over again. "That arrogance cost my father his life!"

Merlin panics; his breath leaves him. "You were only doing what you thought was right! I am sure that that old sorcerer meant no harm." He swallows. "Perhaps the spell went wrong. Uther was dying -- maybe nothing could have saved him."

"We'll never know," says Arthur, and his voice is flat and full of conviction. "All I know for sure is that I've lost both my parents to magic. 

"It is pure evil. I will never lose sight of that again."

Something in Merlin breaks, an irreparable rift, and every hope Merlin ever had runs out through it like water.

Three solemn knocks sound on the door, echoed by rolling thunder. It's not until Arthur rises and leaves for the Great Hall to sit vigil with his father through the night that Merlin finally breathes again, and it's the most painful breath he's ever taken.

::------------------------::

In the bright sun of the new morning, Arthur closes the doors to the Great Hall and breaks bread with a man he knows (now, after all they have been through together and sacrificed for one another) to be his friend. There is something about Merlin, there always has been, something hidden, as much as Merlin seems to live his life right out loud, with rarely a thought in his head. Arthur wonders if it's that hidden thing that makes Merlin start like he's heard a death knell when the coronation bells begin to ring.


End file.
